A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Camelot' Star Robert Goulet Dies at 73 - Robert Goulet was in good spirits as he waited for a lung transplant, even telling doctors before they inserted a breathing tube, "Just watch my vocal cords," his wife said. (READ MORE)
Mukasey Losing Democrats' Backing - Attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey told Senate Democrats yesterday that a kind of simulated drowning known as waterboarding is "repugnant to me," but he said he does not know whether the interrogation tactic violates U.S. laws against torture. (READ MORE)
Clinton's Foes Go on the Attack - PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 30 -- With just over two months until the first primary contest, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Democratic rivals aggressively challenged their party's front-runner here Tuesday night, accusing her of being dishonest and of emboldening President Bush to declare war against Iran. (READ MORE)
U.S. and Pakistan: A Frayed Alliance - Five years ago, elite Pakistani troops stationed near the border with Afghanistan began receiving hundreds of pairs of U.S.-made night-vision goggles that would enable them to see and fight al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in the dark. The sophisticated goggles, supplied by the Bush administration at... (READ MORE)
Intelligence Budget Disclosure Is Hailed - The Democratic chairman and ranking Republican member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday praised the administration's declassification of the $43.5 billion budget total for national intelligence programs, calling it a useful step toward enhanced accountability. (READ MORE)
New Charter Would Widen Chavez's Reach - BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 30 -- Under a new constitution being considered in Venezuela, the workday would be slashed from eight hours to six, so workers would have sufficient time for "personal development." But while Venezuelans might have more leisure time, the constitution would also ensure that President Hugo Chavez could toil far into the future. (READ MORE)
Iraq Set to Lift Contractors' Immunity - The Iraqi parliament is poised to pass its first significant piece of legislation since the lawmakers went on summer recess — a bill to remove immunity from expatriate security companies working there. (READ MORE)
Answers Sought on TB Flier - Senators are demanding answers about why a Mexican national infected with a contagious form of tuberculosis was allowed to cross the U.S. border 76 times and whether government officials were told not to discuss the case outside their departments. (READ MORE)
FAA Fines Minister $28,000 - The Rev. Sam Childers, a Pennsylvania missionary who operates the orphanage for victims of the war in Sudan's Darfur region and elsewhere in Africa, is in a fight with federal aviation officials over a $28,000 fine for some supplies he tried to send to his shelter. (READ MORE)
O'Malley Links Tax Cuts, Health Coverage to Slots - Gov. Martin O'Malley yesterday warned that if his plan to legalize slot machines is rejected, he will not cut property taxes, freeze college tuition, increase spending on school construction or expand health care coverage. (READ MORE)
McCain Caters to GOP Voters - Sen. John McCain has quietly been piling up flip-flops, including ditching his long-held support for the Law of the Sea convention and telling bloggers he now opposes the DREAM Act to legalize illegal alien students. (READ MORE)
Officials: Boy Started California Fire - A boy playing with matches started a fire in north Los Angeles County that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week, authorities said yesterday. (READ MORE)
The Kingdom - King Abdullah caused an uproar ahead of a visit to Britain this week by scolding his hosts about terrorism. But as long as the Saudi monarch has raised the subject, by all means let's debate the kingdom's role in promoting radical Islam. In a BBC interview Monday, King Abdullah said that "most countries are not taking this issue [terrorism] too seriously… (READ MORE)
From the Front:
From an Anthropological Perspective: Tribal Genealogy - Another project I am working on as part of trying to understand who are the stakeholders in this area is tribal genealogy. That information is largely understand by many people here but is not necessarily understood by Americans. Last night I was priviledged to spend a few hours at a Sheik's house and he explained his tribe's genealogy. The section pictured here shows his lineage going back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) and before. Elaborate trees (this one stands from floor to over my head) are symbols to visitors of the Sheik's legitimate claim to authority. (READ MORE)
ON Point: The “Concerned Citizens”- The Locals Join Up - It may have taken four years, but the Iraqi people are finally taking the lead in the reconstruction of their own country. The combination of the extra American troops brought in through The Surge strategy, accompanied by the Iraqi revulsion to the brutality of Al-qada-Iraq and others is producing a resurgence of Iraqi local pride that may provide the tipping point in the war. OnPoint examines 1 - an area in the Diyala River Valley (north of Baghdad), 2 - a suburb in Baghdad, and 3 - talked with Coalition spokesman Maj Gen Kevin Bergner about the current conditions in Iraq: Reconciliation begins in Muqdadiya... (READ MORE)
Jason's Iraq Vacation: Typical Situation - The sensory overload was making my head spin, but I had to get control of the situation, so I stepped back for a second and just kinda laughed to myself. This is typical, I thought to myself. A typical meeting with a typical Iraqi self-appointed bigshot. A few posts ago I wrote about the green sewer trench that has taken on a life of its own. Well, this trench is about to overflow and fill our little camp with its green goodness. (READ MORE)
Yellowhammering Afghanistan: There shura are a lot of people here - We attended our first shura today. Actually, it was the second one for me, but the last time I was working with the police on perimeter security and never got to go into the actual shura itself, so this was the first one I attended. The shura is like a town hall meeting in which everyone - every male anyway - in a given area attends. This shura was in Dih Yak, one of our districts in Ghazni province. Village elders from throughout Dih Yak were there as were representatives from Parliament and the Ghazni governor. The Dih Yak sub-governor was there as one might expect. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Orin Kerr: Speaking Ruth to Power - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently gave an address on the role of dissenting opinions that included a remarkable explanation for her dissent last term in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber. That case involved a statute regulating when discrimination claims must be filed; the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the lawsuit in that case was filed too late. Justice Ginsburg dissented, and she took the unusual step of reading her dissent from the bench. In her address, Justice Ginsburg explains that the purpose of her dissent was "to attract immediate public attention and to propel legislative change." She then explains how the other branches responded: (READ MORE)
Benjamin Civiletti, et al: Surveillance Sanity - Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to target al Qaeda communications into and out of the country. Mr. Bush concluded that this was essential for protecting the country, that using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act would not permit the necessary speed and agility, and that he had the constitutional power to authorize such surveillance without court orders to defend the country. Since the program became public in 2006, Congress has been asserting appropriate oversight. Few of those who learned the details of the program have criticized its necessity. Instead, critics argued that if the president found FISA inadequate, he should have gone to Congress and gotten the changes necessary to allow the program to proceed under court orders. (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: A Diplomacy of Neighborhoods - Diplomats, pack your duffel bags. And I mean duffel bags, not garment bags. While you're at it, get a pair of boots. I also recommend several pair of work gloves and work pants with lots of pockets for cameras, extra batteries, sunglasses and your global cell phone. Twenty-first century diplomacy isn't an office job. It is a demanding and, at times, a dangerous trade, one that requires accepting deprivation, running physical risks and hanging out in bad neighborhoods. (READ MORE)
Ed Feulner: Maneuvering Against Missile Defense - There’s simply no pleasing some people. In the 1990s, Congress decided it was time for the United States to build a missile-defense system. This was a reasonable -- even overdue -- step. After all, we’d been completely defenseless against any sort of missile attack since the missile had been invented. But not everybody liked the idea. For example, in 2000 the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report that questioned the technical feasibility of a Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system. (READ MORE)
Mike S. Adams: Brave Newark World - The University of Delaware has just become one of the most Orwellian campuses in America. Students in its residence halls are now being subjected to a re-education program that is actually dubbed - in the university’s own tax-payer funded materials - as “treatment” for students who have incorrect attitudes and beliefs. Delaware now requires nearly 7,000 students in its residence halls to adopt specific public university-approved (read: government-approved) views on issues ranging from race, to sexuality, to philosophy. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (see www.TheFire.org) is calling for the total dismantling of the program. (READ MORE)
Jacob Sullum: $23,000-a-Barrel Oil - When does oil cost $13,000 a barrel? When you spill it in Prince William Sound. That's how much Exxon paid after one of its tankers ran aground on Bligh Reef near the southern coast of Alaska in 1989, spilling 258,000 barrels of oil. The company spent more than $3.4 billion on clean-up costs, fines and compensation payments. Yet, in 1994, a federal jury in Anchorage said Exxon should cough up another $5 billion in punitive damages, a number that an appeals court eventually cut in half. (READ MORE)
John Stossel: Utahns Can Vote for School Choice Tuesday - Next Tuesday, Utah voters go to the polls to decide if their state will become the first in the nation to offer school vouchers statewide. Referendum 1 would make all public-school kids eligible for vouchers worth from $500 to $3,000 a year, depending on family income. Parents could then use the vouchers to send their children to private schools. What a great idea. Finally, parents will have choices that wealthy parents have always had. The resulting competition would create better private schools and even improve the government schools. (READ MORE)
Walter E. Williams: Are the Poor Getting Poorer? - People who want more government income redistribution programs often sell their agenda with the lament, "The poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer," but how about some evidence and you decide? I think the rich are getting richer, and so are the poor. According to the most recent census, about 35 million Americans live in poverty. Heritage Foundation scholar Robert Rector, using several government reports, gives us some insights about these people in his paper: "Understanding Poverty and Economic Inequality in the United States". (READ MORE)
Brent Bozell III: "Peace" Movement Passe? - If the "peace" movement holds a protest and no one in the press covers it, does it still exist? If Americans are sick of the war, they're also sick of the "antiwar." Even the media have grown antiwar-weary. Rallies on Oct. 27 drew only perfunctory news mentions. The peaceniks have become a bipartisan political problem, now that the Democrats who control Congress haven't dared to placate the radicals by cutting off money for the troops. Cindy Sheehan is threatening to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But suddenly -- surprise, surprise -- the media aren't interested in Sheehan's new crusade. (READ MORE)
Carl Horowitz: The Jena Defendants: Is Thuggery a New Right? - "You think we brought thousands to Jena. You wait 'til we go to D.C. and bring the whole country, because there's Jenas all over America. There's Jenas in New York. There's Jenas in Atlanta. There's Jenas in Florida. There's Jenas all over Texas." -- Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking in Jena, Louisiana, September 20, 2007 Times had been tough for a while for Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and other self-proclaimed civil-rights spokesmen. Their attempt to sway public opinion in the hopes of railroading into prison three white Duke University lacrosse players on phony rape charges backfired badly this spring. (READ MORE)
Janice Shaw Crouse: The Softer Side of Hillary - The media have made much of Senator Hillary Clinton’s new campaign to show her “softer side” and her more feminine self. The comics have had a heyday questioning whether she even has a softer, more feminine side. Cynics like me recognize that this is a calculated effort to win the presidency. With her current support pretty much limited to single women (who are already in her party’s camp anyway and, alas for her, tend to vote in limited numbers), Hillary has to reach out to married mothers if she wants to “expand her territory” (to use the latest fad in Evangelical lingo, since so much of the married mother vote is religious). (READ MORE)
Jerry Bowyer: Hawks, Doves, Vultures, and Chicken Littles - Editor's note: this piece originally appeared on the National Review Online. My e-mail inbox is usually near full these days. That’s what happens when people are confused about the markets. But necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention, and I’ve used this deluge to improve my computer filing system. Rather then let my e-mails stack up on top of each other, I now place them in specially marked folders, according to their economic species. Herewith, my folder headings and cataloguing criteria: (READ MORE)
GayPatriot: Paul Krugman Proved A Fool By British Islamists - Paul Krugman, New York Times’ resident Bush Hater & Appeaser (and man, that’s quite an accomplishment) wrote a widely discussed piece on Monday: Fearing Fear Itself. It features all of the now-routine liberal rhetoric designed to undercut and de-legitimize our war effort and our American government itself. But the key line of the piece was this: "For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism - it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination." (READ MORE)
Ian Schwatrz: (Video) Hillary Asked About National Archives Records, Obama Pounces - Tim Russert asked Hillary if she would release her national security records that her husband locked away until at least 2012. Hillary, of course spinned her answer and joked about how the National Archives has more important things to worry about and how it takes for them to get through things. However, Russert would have none of it and asked her again. Obama took this as a chance to blast Hillary as being apart the same old, same old Washington crowd. He added that if a candidate was really interested in change they would be an “open, transparent, accountable” leader. (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Ron Rosenbaum: LA Times is sitting on a major sex scandal involving a “leading” candidate - When the news is slow, we turn to rumor. I linked this in the debate thread last night but it’s interesting enough to warrant its own thread, especially on a dull morning. Let’s see if we can apply some collective intelligence. The only clues are that it involves a “leading” candidate and this: "Now, as I say it’s a rumor; I haven’t seen the supporting evidence. But the person who told me said it offhandedly as if everyone in his world knew about it. And if you look close enough you can find hints of something impending, something potentially derailing to this candidate in the reporting of the campaign." (READ MORE)
Bryan Preston: FIRE: U of Delaware student indoctrination teaches that all white people are racist Updated - You can’t make this stuff up: The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has found a program that would make the most totalitarian Communist proud of its hard left bias, its heavy handedness and gall. “The University of Delaware subjects students in its residence halls to a shocking program of ideological reeducation that is referred to in the university’s own materials as a ‘treatment’ for students’ incorrect attitudes and beliefs.” (READ MORE)
Dymphna: Georgetown's School of Foreign Service Presents Its Hallowe'en Horror Movie - You can’t say Georgetown University isn’t predictable. The nursery for future State Department Hive Workers never strays far from its text, no matter how far it may stray from home. Thus The Georgetown School of Foreign Service in Qatar has a film series for its faculty this term. And for a Hallowe’en trick-or-treat party they are showing The Situation, purportedly a look at the situation in Iraq post-Saddam. Given what we know about our State Department workers’ general sentiments about things American, the emotional tenor of this film should come as no surprise. (READ MORE)
Don Surber: A journalist learns - After dissing milbloggers, CJR blogger praises bloggers - Remember this passage defending Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp from critics of his fabrications? “How dare a college grad and engaged citizen volunteer to join the Army to fight for his country! (Which is something that most of the brave souls who inhabit the milblog community prefers to leave to others.)” Milbloggers actually are in the military. Most have rotated through Iraq or Afghanistan and several times. They know their ammo, their vehicles and their terrain. They can spot fake from half a world away. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Madrid Mastermind Walks - The Spanish court trying the remaining suspects in the deadly Madrid bombings convicted the actual perpetrators today, sentencing them to gaudy terms that wind up being no more than 40 years each. The man who planned the attacks, and whose voice could be heard on wiretaps bragging about it, won an acquittal: "One of the accused masterminds of the 2004 Madrid terror bombings was acquitted of all charges today by a Spanish court in the culmination to a politically divisive trial over Europe's worst Islamic militant terror attack." (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: Troubled Waters - This article about the practice of waterboarding has generated a lot of discussion about the practice, as well as just what defines "torture" and how it should be regulated or banned by our government. My first reaction was surprise. I'd never had any real problems with waterboarding, as I understood it worked by simulating drowning. To my mind, "torture" has to involve an element of severe pain or bodily injury -- and as I understood it, the experience of waterboarding tricked the subconscious into thinking one was drowning -- but NOT ACTUALLY DROWNING. According to the article, though, it actually involves a partial drowning -- water in the lungs and all that. (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Suicide bomber kills seven outside military headquarters in Rawalpindi - As the Pakistani government has negotiated another cease-fire with the Taliban in the settled district of Swat in the Northwest Frontier Province, the terrorists conducted another suicide strike in the heart of President Pervez Musharraf's seat of power. A suicide bomber detonated his vest outside of the Pakistani army headquarters in the military garrison city of Rawalpindi. Seven were killed, including two police officers, and another 14 were reported wounded in the strike. The suicide bomber struck as Musharraf was conducting talks with his senior leaders. "The blast happened at a police checkpost a less than a kilometre (half a mile) from where Musharraf was holding talks with top government officials about a spate of attacks, including a recent bid to kill Benazir Bhutto," AFP reported. (READ MORE)
The Oxford Medievalist: Welcome to the University of Delaware. Check Your Brain at the Door - Not satisfied with the comparatively simple liberal re-education of students that happens on most U.S. college campuses, the University of Delaware conducts a comprehensive, aggressive and quite blatant indoctrination program reminiscent of something out of Orwell's 1984. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a non-profit organization dealing with civil liberties in academia, the University's own materials describe the program as "treatment" for students' incorrect attitudes and beliefs: "The university’s views are forced on students through a comprehensive manipulation of the residence hall environment, from mandatory training sessions to “sustainability” door decorations. Students living in the university’s eight housing complexes are required to attend training sessions, floor meetings, and one-on-one meetings with their Resident Assistants (RAs)." (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: Who cares about voter fraud, anymore? ACORN guilty pleas ignored - Remember last fall, when every last moonbat was decrying voter fraud preemptively? Remember Diebold Derangement Syndrome? After the Dems won, of course, voter fraud dropped from their political radar screen. And boy, would they love for the rest of us to fuhgeddaboudit. Yesterday, three elections hoaxers who worked for the far Left group ACORN pleaded guilty in Seattle for their role in the biggest election fraud scheme in Washington state history (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Surrenderists Mull A Truce - While they work on a new abandonment strategy. Of course, there are a few deadenders: "WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are debating whether to approve up to $70 billion more for Iraq and Afghanistan, only a down payment on President Bush’s $196 billion war spending request but enough to keep the wars afloat for several more months." I’d suggest it’s more likely to spare Democrats another painful veto humiliation, not to mention a vote that may well indicate significant defections. Better just to let it go quietly. (READ MORE)
McQ: The Democratic Halloween Debate - Well I watched a debate - naturally it was the Democratic debate - and I only watched it because there were going to be some promised fireworks. And, to an extent, there were. As an aside, my wife, who obviously knows I’m a political junkie, always questioned why I didn’t watch these things. I had various excuses, but last night, sitting together watching this one she said, "now I know why you don’t watch. They irritate the hell out of you don’t they"? Uh, yeah. 2 hours of one-sided, unanswered crap - well, except when they were attacking Hillary, and then she got some rebuttal time. In fact the most used 6 words during the debate were "George Bush, Dick Cheney and Senator Clinton" because they were the ones under constant attack. (READ MORE)
Dan Riehl: What Was Missing In The Democrat Debate - So I watched the Democrat debate tonight in its entirety, just taking it in. Is there an industry they wouldn't attack? From Hedge Funds, Defense, the Airlines, Insurance companies and, of course, the Oil Companies, it seems they all have investigations, regulations, or some restrictions in mind, assuming they flat out don't just want to do away with it completely? Not once did I hear anything even remotely referencing the individual and certainly nothing that might challenge one. Apparently people can't become Doctors ... unless the government pays their tuition - and the trend discussed was free college for all at the government's expense. (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House: No "Slam Dunk" Medal of Freedom Winners - Ever since George Tenet won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the award seems to have lost some of its luster. It’s much like the Nobel Peace Prize; once you have given the award to someone who exhibits the exact opposite qualities that should be recognized, all credibility in the prize is lost. In the case of the mis-named Peace Prize, you can point to several recipients in the last quarter century who have been named champions of peace but were actually murderers and thugs. Yassar Arafat comes immediately to mind. Then there were to enablers of murderous thugs like Kofi Anan and Jimmy Carter. The moral universe inhabited by the Nobel Committee is not the same one you and I live in. They have forever cheapened an award that at one time, was recognized as a singular honor. (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: The Top 6 Attacks On Hillary At Last Night's Debate - Last night, I suffered through another hideous Democratic debate which featured 2 hours of socialists talking about how rotten everything is in this country, followed by each of them blaming every bad thing that's happening on Bush -- and then they all promised to fix each problem with either massive new spending, a huge increase in government power, or some combination thereof. After the debate, I took a little tour around the National Review blogs and was absolutely amazed to find them saying that Hillary won the debate. In my opinion, she delivered the single worst performance of any top tier candidate, on either side, so far this year. (READ MORE)
ROFASix: How Different It Might Have Been - My previous post on Ron Paul got me musing on what our world might be like now had Ron Paul sparked an examination by Americans as to the road we were on in 1988 and we had changed our course thereafter. What would it be like if America embraced her core principles and avoided international interventionism then, as Paul proposes we do from now on? It is, as politicians like to say, a 'hypothetical' and I do em' even though politicians won't. The difference being bloggers don't have to stroke voters like politicians do. Some will argue that failing to follow our interventionist policies of the late 1980s might have meant we would have lost the Cold War. I doubt it. It might only have changed the timeline of events, not the outcome. (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: "If Wishes Were Horses..." - The last several days have treated us to a number of articles and posts that examine the tendency of so many people to blur the distinction between reality and fantasy. On Friday, Peggy Noonan suggested that the New Republic editors could only buy Scott Thomas Beauchamp's fantasies because the closest they had ever come to the military was through the lens of anti-war movies. During the fabled 60s and 70s, movies which depicted the military reliably took as reality the left-wing point of view that the military took ordinary young men (hereinafter referred to as "victims") and turned them into amoral killers and torturers. On Saturday, Mark Steyn suggested that conspiracy theorists have ongoing difficulties separating fantasy from reality: (READ MORE)
Smooth Stone: What is Machsom Watch? - The she-pigs at Machsom Watch love to tour Hebron and other parts of the legitimate and sovereign nation of Israel with groups of Israelis and non-Israelis, against the Jews of Hebron by giving false, warped presentations. Furthermore, the she-pigs at Machsom Watch act with the cooperation of Palestinian interlopers and marauders in order to undermine the operations of the Israel Defence Forces, whose purpose is to defend the citizens of Israel against palestinian murderers. In fact, the actions perpetrated by the she-pigs at Machsom Watch are racist actions that aim to bring about the ethnic cleansing of Hebron of all of its Jewish citizens. (READ MORE)
Some Soldier's Mom: It's Not About You - I read this websitePostSecret where people send in their deepest (and sometimes darkest) secrets on post cards. (Docturned me on to the site a few years ago.) The site has spawned a number of books... and to tell the truth, I am sometimes shocked! by the secrets people send in -- to the point that every once in a while I wonder whether people are making things up just to see if they can get on the website. This week's secrets include the one shown above. I wonder if it's the same Mom I wrote to here? If not, I'd like to address this Mom here: Dear Madam, Makes you feel like a failure as a mother?? Oh give me a break lady! Did you raise him/her to live YOUR dream or did you raise your child to live HIS/HERS?? So, let me enlighten you:
IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU. (READ MORE)
Warner Todd Huston: Fire All Government Workers - We conservatives are fond of wanting to oust everyone in office and for wanting to “vote the scoundrels out.” But, I’d like to add one more level to the throw-them-out-of-government genera. Let’s fire every government worker from the smallest village receptionist or sewer worker to the staffers of the highest Senator and every menial clerk and recalcitrant paper shuffler in between. It’s not just pique at the famous laziness of a government worker and it’s not just the fact that the only reason they got their jobs is because they are pals with one politician or another. It’s not just that they are better paid than just about any real American in the private sector — whether they deserve it or not — and it’s not because they are impossible to fire, nor is it because they get a better pension and health care than anyone who really contributes to society… well, OK, it is because of that stuff. All that stuff and more. (READ MORE)
THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS: Nicolas Sarkozy and me - The Chirac Broadcasting System, desperate to boost its own failing ratings due to hostility towards many things Americans support, decided to run a sensationalist promo attacking Nicolas Sarkozy. The buildup to the interview was a clip meant to make it look like he stormed out of an interview. Granted, this is not as bad as “fake but accurate” memos, or fake footage of cars exploding, but it is still typical leftist dishonesty. The truth is Mr. Sarkozy was very busy, and did not want his scheduler booking that interview on that day. Then, to compound the problem, the interviewer asked stupid questions. (READ MORE)
Wolf Pangloss: Media Cheerleaders for Despair - In a 4GW like the Counterjihad the world is fighting against Al Qaeda and the other Caliphate gangs, the media are the the means of attack. We cannot afford to have a media with no regard for the obligations of good citizenship. They will amplify the enemy’s message and muffle our own. And yet that is what we have. How did it get this bad? There are no more Ernie Pyles telling the stories of American grunts from the perspective of the foxhole. Though Geraldo Rivera and other television news stars embedded with American troops in the charge to Baghdad in 2003, reporting positively on the initial blitzkrieg that seized the land with remarkably little bloodshed for a war of conquest, that changed quickly. (READ MORE)
Meryl Yourish: Hamas to Israel: We’re going to keep on killing - The democratically-elected government of the Palestinian terrortories[sic] is declaring its intention to murder large numbers of Israelis and, indeed, to start an “offensive war” with Israel (like they’re not already doing that). “Muhammad Deif, the commander of Hamas’ military wing, has said that the movement will strike in the heart of Israel in the near future, a senior Hamas member said Tuesday. The man, Sheikh Ahmed Hamdan from the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, said that he recently met with Deif in his hiding place, and heard from him that Hamas will soon replace its defensive fighting policy with an offensive one. According to Hamdan, ‘The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, plans to begin its attack against the Israeli occupation in the coming weeks, and will not settle for the defensive policy.’” (READ MORE)
Michael Kraft: The Holy Land Foundation: Misinformation about Material Support - In the recent trial of the Holy Land Foundation and some of the other trials of groups or persons charged with providing for foreign terrorist organizations, a frequent assertion made on behalf of the defendants is that the contributions were for humanitarian purposes, not terrorist attacks. This theme was stretched to its limits by Professor David Cole of Georgetown University, a prolific defender of groups accused of violating the 1996 law (the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) that makes it a criminal offense to knowingly provide funds or other forms of material support to groups designated by the Secretary of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. In a Washington Post op-ed article ““Anti-Terrorism on Trial” printed Wednesday, October 24, Prof. Cole seriously misrepresents the Material Support provisions of claiming that “for all practical purposes the law imposes guilt by association.” (READ MORE)
Democracy Project: Lawyers Should Do No Harm - The first rule of medicine is Do No Harm. The same should apply to lawyers. There are gradations of circumstances in which this rule comes into play. Cut off a gangrenous toe to save a leg is not a harm. Cutting off a terrorist from destroying thousands of lives is not a harm. Two former U.S. Attorney Generals and a former Director of the CIA and FBI, serving Democrat and Republican administrations, speak to that in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Surveillance Sanity.” (READ MORE)
Blue Star Chronicles: A Liberal Mother’s Son Joins the Military and She Doesn’t Have a Clue - I came so close to not reading this story. Its gotten to the point that reading about what people like this think of our military infuriates me so bad that I can almost literally feel my blood pressure going up as I read it. When I saw the title of the blog post over at The Pirate’s Cove I pulled my eyes away, but then had a compulsion to go back and read it. Sure enough, I found myself getting aggravated, but then I actually come close to feeling sorry for this woman because she really and truly doesn’t get it. She has written an article that exposes her contempt for and embarrassment by the choices her son has made and, interestingly, it seems to be more about her than about her son. (READ MORE)
Confederate Yankee: An Eye For Detail - I had every intention of letting "Cheney Flag-gate" go uncommented upon as a non-story. Vice President Cheney went pheasant hunting at an exclusive preserve in Dutchess County, New York yesterday, and the hunt itself left only pheasants hitting the ground. It was a local interest story for the most part, until a sharp-eyed photographer and a self-promoting blowhard turned this local interest story into a national non-story when it was discovered that the inside of the back door of a garage at the hunt club was draped in a Confederate battle flag. There is precisely no evidence that Cheney or anyone on his staff saw the flag, but that didn't keep the Daily News from running straight to Al Sharpton. The story ended in lots of hot air being spit by a man in love with the sound of his own voice, and many people fruitlessly wishing they had a way to somehow blame the Vice President. I only mention this story at all because of the eye for detail it reveals in our media. Consider this a "teachable moment" for media fact-checkers. (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Hajj Podge - Hajj is the pilgrimage all good Moslems must undertake during the lunar month of Dhu’l Hijja, sometime during their lives. The journey to Mecca is the fifth of the five pillars of Islam, after professing that there is no God but God, and Mohammed is His prophet; praying five times every day; giving charity to the poor; and fasting during Ramadan. Every year, millions of the faithful travel to Mecca, walk seven times around the Kabah and sacrifice an animal to God, in honor of the patriarch Ibrahim. And every year, it seems that brainless Hollywood weirdos must perform their own Hajj to the America-hating dictator du jour. The most recent pilgrim is 37 year old "supermodel" and violent harridan Naomi Campbell: (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: MSNBC Hysterics Over Mosul Dam - MSNBC has a video report and accompanying story on the situation with the Mosul Dam, which is located in Northern Iraq. The dam was built in the early 1980s by Saddam Hussein. “Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager.” (READ MORE)
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